Let's not forget that- even if by a miracle gotti and sammy beat the case, Sammy himself said that one of the reasons he flipped was because from the tapes, he knew he'd have problems with gotti down the line

gotti was clearly unhappy with him and Sammy knew he wouldn't win a war with gotti.

Also, side note.

I keep reading previous posts about "how dumb a boss gotti was" that he wasn't a smart boss

I agree to some extent but according to Sammy's own words, despite him thrashing gotti every chance he got

Sammy agreed on one thing," oh no, john was SMART, no question about it"